This is true, but I don't understand why Explorer has been plagued with performance issues (and some of those intermittent; I presume based on network status) since forever.

I'm actually a big fan of Windows on the desktop, and as long as I avoid Explorer, I have no issues at all with file system performance while I'm developing, working from the command line, VS Code and Rider, and working with containers and WSL - all works great. But Explorer is such a central component of Windows that it affects pretty all users. I genuinely don't understand how it can be so rubbish ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What about refusing to delete files that some process has open in a dangling descriptor? Is that just a GUI thing? I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Also, is there a better way to hunt down the background process than sysinternals? It seems pretty ridiculous that a low level debugging tool is required to do something as modest as reliably move and delete files, but I never heard of a better workaround.

I think for the purpose of this discussion, explorer IS Windows. It is the UI that we all wish didn’t have these issues. I like using the command line / powershell when I’m on Windows for large file operations, but sometimes I still go to drag files around out of habit and quickly remember I have made a huge mistake as everything grinds to a halt / takes forever. On Linux and MacOS GUI file operations most of the time seem like they are just a visual way to call the same operations you’d be using on the command line.